#switching gears

[cycwrites]

Hi! So glad to see you back. Switching Gears is my comfort fic. Any chance you are planning for a sequel? And that it will stay exclusively Staubrey and Bechloe? I love Bella squared, but I love Aubrey and Stacie more and there are so few quality fics of them. On another note, obviously I loved your latest update.

Hello and thank you! I love that anything I write is considered a comfort fic for people, it gives me the warm fuzzies.

While I rarely say never, I can say the odds aren't good with this one. It was such a specific plot idea that barely stayed in it's starting lane for Staubrey. The side relationships weren't supposed to happen beyond a brief side Bechloe mention and then I almost went the Squared route anyway.

The only reason I'd write a follow up at this point would be to put the 4 of them together because they convinced me it was inevitable. But at this point that just lives in my head. I don't even have half a plot idea for that after all these years. Notes, yes, but that's it.

So I will most likely leave it as the stand alone Staubrey story it was meant to be even though it almost became something entirely different by the end.

The update was... both more and less difficult to write than I thought after 3 years, but I admit to being very nervous about posting after so long, so thank you for that too.

Hope you're having a wonderful start to your year, despite my utter lack of good news about Gears 2, lol.

[chloes-yellow-cup]

will there be another part of switching gears 👀

I have had 5% of idea for a very thin cover as an excuse to write the events that almost happened in Gears.

I’ve had that for years now. Along with finishing movie 2 - I have… 2.5 chapters done? And the (at least) 8 other WIPs for Pitch alone.

Not to mention my current wish to turn a video game into a fic to share the story with non-gamers.

Work is an energy suck that I resent. I need a patron of the arts to just pay my bills so I can play video games and write all day.

I hope one day to actually finish the important things. I definitely owe everyone an answer to my cliffhanger of a fic tease, lol.

I also want to say thanks to everyone who reaches out to make sure I’m still alive and haven’t given up.

I haven’t. I swear.

[redlegend-a]

and now for... giovanni got absolutely mauled by a ghost.

[elvhenfaer]

What? I’m drawing something other than Dorian?

Oh yeah, did I mention I would die for Ruthari? I swear I’m gonna sob when Runaan and Ethari are reunited. Seriously, catch me screaming. So, I’m gonna practice drawing them. My goal is to support underrated gay elves everywhere.

[rubber-duck-obsessed-boi]

As much as I love doing voices, I don't have the equipment to have clear, nice voice clips. Perhaps voice acting is just not in the cards right now. So instead I think I'll focus on my writing and my art.

Not giving up on voice acting but theres only so much I can do without proper equipment.

[avani008]

Switching Gears: one of Draupadi's children/siblings survives the massacre. OR A Glass Darkly: Panchal.

After, Shikandi remembers little of what passed following Ashwattama’s last blow, the hours he spent half-smothered beneath heavy tent-cloth, the stench of blood and vomit rising around him. Memory returns to him only with the arrival of new voices, new footsteps, new shouts of grief and anger, and at last, as he knew there must be, the searching arms of his sister.

He is placed into them by one of his brothers-in-law--Bhima, perhaps?--and his throat is dry but still he rasps: forgive me I tried to save them I wasn’t enough forgive me forgive me forgive me

*

He is not there when the Pandavas exact revenge for their sons, but he is there when Uttara brings forth Parikshit. He hesitates, at first; he has no part in this legacy, no satisfaction to be found in the face of a step-nephew’s son, but Krishnaa moans a little and he steps forward to catch her should she swoon. This much, at least, he can do for her. 

When he looks to his sister, however, she is instead fiercely, fearsomely glad, and so is he to see it.

He has lost so much in one terrible night--father, brother, soldiers, self-respect--but at least Krishnaa remains. 

*

In the past, Shikandi had always regarded his twin siblings with a certain guarded respect--with love, of course, but with the understanding that those two, born from the flames together, would ever be closer to each other than the rest, that to intrude would be nothing less than outright sin. But now, everything is different. Now he and Krishnaa are all that are left of Panchal.

He asks, once, if she would rather he had died and Dhristadyumna be spared. (This is what it means to be Panchal: to expose every vulnerability, every fear, but only to those you held most dear.)

Krishnaa, far from immediately denying his words, bites her lip instead for a long moment. “Perhaps,” she says eventually. “You in place of my sons, a thousand times over.”

(This too: to be ever honest, ruthlessly, painfully so--but only with those you held most dear.)

“As would I,” Shikandi admits, and reaches for her hand. The blood of Panchal, so long nurtured through the generations, will die with them, they know, but for now they have each other.

For now, Panchal still lives. 

[sims3morgans]

[getyourjoey-blog]

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